


The Impulse to Fear

by speckledsolanaceae



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Hidden Feelings, M/M, Oneshot, cooking together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 02:11:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20499188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speckledsolanaceae/pseuds/speckledsolanaceae
Summary: Jaemin breathed science and struggled with emotion.





	The Impulse to Fear

“Stop laughing at me.” 

The laughter continued.

“I’m serious. Stop it.”

Prods and nudges and jabs, nudges to the back that aren’t so much hearty as demanding and then to the back of the head that aren’t so much demanding as done. 

“Stop laughing.”

Everything was a resistance, one that Jaemin would claim as futile, but the only reason they are was because as much as Jeno meant all of it, he was convinced they belied other opinions. Or else, why would he still be there? Or here, rather, where Jeno is flinging a raw onion ring at him and laughing—

“Shut up! Science, Nana! Onions make people cry!”

Jaemin breathed science, and the common miscellany of onions was not beyond him.

Still.

“You don’t have to react so violently to my beauty, Jeno-yah,” he teased, biting down on a smile. He picked up the fallen slice of vegetable and tossed it in the bin right as Jeno shook a whole potato at him. He was wiping his eyes with his shoulder.

“I will shove this down your throat.” There was a pause filled only with Jaemin’s grin at Jeno and the smile that was fighting between his frown. Today was a good day. Jeno diffused, nails digging into the vegetable before he continued onward. “Help me. You’re better at this anyway.”

Both of them could cook, both out of necessity, but for different claims. Jaemin cooked because heated and preserved factory food had gotten tiring around the age of thirteen. Jeno did because his mother had him help Saturday and Sunday nights as soon as it became relatively appropriate to hand a child a knife. Normally one or two of Jeno's siblings would be carefully (or recklessly) peeling carrots and whatnot, but Jaemin was meant to take that position while the others cleaned up. No one was complaining.

Reaching down to bring out a pan, he chirped a flirt because that was the way things were. “Lucky~ having me help you cook. Do you know how many girls would die for this?”

“Why? Because you’re a threat to humanity in the kitchen?”

Baseless, untrue, because Jeno had asked him to make japchae just last week; Jaemin laughed around a pout. “Only in the best ways.”

Jeno nudged the lip of a half-filled measuring glass between the other’s ribs, drowning out the responding scoff with a overreactive yelp of injury. “Next time you can cut the onions. I swear I’ll wipe your eyes with these.” The thought alone made Jaemin wince as he turned the heat and pulled the cutting board out from under Jeno. Sweeping the carrots in with a spill of water, the train of taunt and rebuttal petered into nonexistence.

“My hands itch,” Jaemin began again.

“A rash?” He felt Jeno’s presence press into him as his calloused fingers flipped his free palm and those dark eyes scoured his skin. The notion was discarded. He waited until he was done and placed the board to the side before clarifying: “No. Hoops.”

“Now?” he asked, hands sliding along the side of the knife to clean it—the motion was threatening while simultaneously very much not.

The fact that he asked at all was something that Jaemin took to heart. There was a line between them which he almost understood cognitively instead of instinctively. Sometimes Jeno said no, and sometimes he complied—he knew when it would happen and how to navigate it, but he didn’t know what defined the distinction. Just that there was one.

Basketball, at least, was usually a safe bet.

“After dinner,” he regressed, and remembered to add the onions.

Jeno made a noise that definitely said yes and segued into “Where’s your sister?”

“Boyfriend kidnapped her.” Peering at his profile, he could see Jeno’s cheek lift slightly in a smile, or a smirk, eyes mooning prettily. “He’s a hooligan,” Jaemin asserted, moving the vegetables around absently with a wooden spoon.

Jeno shrugged in leaning against the counter, eyes trained on the sky outside. The evening was broaching on a deep purple. “You can’t ignore that she likes him.”

“I can.” The response was petulant, perfectly paired with a critical squint. It was offset by a somewhat twitchy brush of his hair, though. He didn’t like people being dragged away from him, didn’t trust them to come back. Not unless they were Jeno, but that didn’t mean he lost the impulse to fear. 

Touches were always brief between them lately unless they were steadying, and he almost flinched (he did, minutely) when Jeno’s touch warmed at his elbow.

“The potatoes.”

Jaemin lifted his nose, casting the other a sidelong glance that was both questioning and challenging. “I know. I was just about to.”

Jeno's hand withdrew with a preceding grunt, a slow, amused blink, as the potatoes joined the mix. The kitchen felt colder when Jeno left to set the table, the light more white and less steady. The sigh that pushed out between Jaemin’s lips was simultaneously unwinding while still creeping up his skin in a bleak anxiety. They were rote, in some ways, having long fallen into a push and pull that no longer really was. There was no clashing, just a tenuous offset when Jaemin had to remember to peel his eyes away, to wrench himself from a nonexistent state of wonderment. He almost said so many things, could almost feel the mixing of shared, chemical breaths between them if he could just—Jaemin winced, hand cramping around the spoon. Even in the beginning, he couldn’t decide whether it was want or a need, the latter notion, for once, the appalling one. It should be addition, not some strange compoundment of animal ‘need.’

He hissed, eyes tightening, but only below.

“Did you burn yourself?” Jeno called, voice closer at the end as he leaned in.

“No.” The word was drawn out, prickly, before he briefly saw him (god, he thought it was love, maybe) having that gaze. It was only light enough around the corners for him to realize that he was watching, and probably not assessing. “No,” he reiterated, settling the spoon so he could lift his hands, except the second ‘no’ wasn’t even about that.

A quick breath and he stepped in. “Switch with me,” he said, and Jaemin moved out of the way.

The truth was, he didn’t have enough confidence in himself to know. If he could jump in the future, when he could, in retrospect say yes, he would have—

He would have…

Done nothing.

It was ridiculous, but whether he loved him or not wasn’t the only problem. It was so stupid it hurt. He could be cutting out fifty percent of the people in his life if he admitted something like that even misguidedly, and Jeno could, hypothetically, be one of those.

Moving back in toward Jeno, he settled his chin on his shoulder with a huff and watched. He wanted to slide his hands in his pockets or sneak his hands up through his shirt, but he couldn’t commit to that.

“Jeno, how did your parents fall in love?”

There was that thoughtful crease between his eyebrows, lips tucking slightly. “Over time, probably.”

A chirp of a laugh flittered in Jaemin's throat, looking up through his eyelashes as Jeno turned his head in question. “Why don’t you ask her," Jeno said. "Or my dad.” 

“No, that’s okay.” The water bubbled with curiosity. “I was just wondering if you knew.”

He thought that maybe if they were a couple, Jeno would have leaned into his touch, but instead it was as if Jaemin wasn't even there. A piece of soft furniture with flirtatious qualities and a sunshine-y attitude. He lifted himself out of his space and into orbit.

“Do you think you know what love is, yet?”

Jeno rolled his shoulders in Jaemin’s absence and reached over for the bouillon. His movements paused as if he had gone to answer and then had to think about it more. “Maybe. I'm not going to know until I experience it. I think.” He made an almost frustrated sound, dropping the blocks in and then moving them about for them to dissolve. “My love,” he said, and Jaemin wished he had positioned himself to see his face. “is going to be different than anyone else’s. So it’s going to have to be something I learn.” The rice cooker’s indicator popped. “Get that.”

It was so strange, how Jeno’s eloquence usually stopped short of his thoughtful quips, and probably just short, but then he said things like these that made Jaemin’s heart beat faster. Not because of some attraction, but because Jaemin tended to believe him, and the answers made him feel numb until he wrapped his mind around them. And at that point, he felt he could breathe.

Halfway through taking care of the rice, he inhaled. “How can you be so intelligent and so…you at the same time, Jeno?” he said silkily.

The huff that his words elicited was drawn out, bereaved. “Don’t be mean,” he griped, sliding a lid over the food before leveling his gaze on Jaemin. Sometimes, it felt like charity, when he didn't put so much emphasis on the attempts of negativity that spilled out from Jaemin, but he was grateful for it. 

Jaemin breathed science and struggled with emotion. That was something he was aware of and also the danger—thinking he was in love when he might not be, which only left room for lust and some other dubious options. He thought he could wait, that this all was the precursor, a buildup, to what he was sure he would feel when he had all the chemical and mental components to that elusive ‘love’. 

When did he get this itch? 

Jaemin watched Jeno’s knuckles, the dry cracks, and wanted to know if their hands fit well together, and if they didn’t, if it would be an indication of incompatibility similar to a stripped daisy. 

**Author's Note:**

> I was looking through my old writing and found some thoughts that I then put together and polished a little—it turned into this. There's technically a whole lot of background behind the characterization of these two, but I think I'll leave this as a oneshot.
> 
> I hope it's enjoyable? Let me know ;; I would love to hear from anyone in the comments, but I also have other things. My [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana) and [curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1) are also open for pestering. I have a [tellonym](https://tellonym.me/solananne) as well, but I ask that if you send me a tell, you sign it in some way (____ anon, anon 1, annonnie, etc) so that I know it's not a bot/random question.


End file.
